Shipment with lithium battery

Deutsche Post banned shipping by air anything containing a lithium battery. Shipment with lithium battery up to 5 kg can be sent via UPS with this label

Do you really need an investor?

A few years ago I took a boardgame Cashflow to our company party. We struggled with it for quite a while, but at the end it was fun. It can´t be counted as one of the cheapest boardgames, but it´s a profitable investment. Because allows you to go through the basic vocabulary and the rules of investment and of course it also helps you to widen your financial awareness.

Not long ago I read a reflection about investment written by Sharon Lechter  - a co-auther for this boardgame, which is according to me fundamental for every start-ups. While starting the company which produces this Cashflow game, they had to set some rules for the financing of overhead costs. Those are, in my opinion, the most important components (or a weak spot) for every start-up. They already said it beforehand, that they won´t buy anything, which couldn´t ensure their sales increasement. At the same time they have to earn enough to get this overhead material on their own. They can do that if they´ll set up a sales target, which could cover the costs. When they couldn´t get a new copy machine for 3000 Dollars (which is as tempting as many other things at the begining for start-up companies), they bought a used one for 300 Dollars instead. At the end of the same year they could already change it for a new one, but not until their game became a so called bestseller.    

I like this way of thinking a lot. The number of contracts causes us inside the company a lot of pressure, mainly in the field of technology and also advancement altogether, so sometimes it´s really funny, what interesting things could be dig out. When we are presenting some new releases, I can tell them that it´s something we found in the waste collection. But think about it this way, that a problem occures out of nowhere, we aren´t capable to constantlly manage such a quantum and we don´t want to get into debts or we don´t have time to go to the investors to explain every detail of what we want to do in the future and that a new technology for each warehouse would cost us a million. So we start to do everything our way, which also includes our own developement and at the end we buy the technology from somewhere on the other side of the world literally from a scrap, we contact our manufacturer with our order, we tell them what kind of parts we want and in the most cases we can put it all together for just a fraction of the price. The manufacturers are very pleased, when they see someone so enthusiastic, someone who also found out their problem with the processor, so they even sent us some parts for free as thanks. We also do the same thing with our customers, when they find a problem in our system. I dont´s see anything wrong with choosing the path of optimization and economize on the things which can be economized in this time and age, when the company is successful, those are the keys for further investments.     

PayPal: Shipping to a Buyer’s Confirmed Address

How a Buyer Can Confirm an Address

1. Add a credit card to your PayPal account. PayPal will confirm the credit card billing address (i.e., the address where you receive your credit card statement).
2. Apply for PayPal Smart Connect. If you’re approved, the address on your application will be a Confirmed Address.
3. Alternate address confirmation. This process takes several days and is only available for U.S. accounts. To learn more, log in to your PayPal account and visit the Alternate Address Confirmation page.

How to buy e-books for Kindle on Amazon.de

Amazon.de gave access to buy books only for those clients which are from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. This restriction can be bypassed if you change your mailing address to Germany. On the website www.amazon.com/myk click in the left menu the tab Country settings and choose Germany and your mailing adress in Germany. After that you will receive an announcement from Amazon in the upper bar "Great News" that you can also now shop in Germany and at the end of this announcement click to change: 

Great news! You can now shop for digital content at Amazon.de in Euros. Learn more about transferring to Amazon.de

At the bottom of the information page click on the butten: Transfer your Kindle Account to Amazon.de.

It is necessary to be registered on Amazon.de and Amazon.com under the same login, in order to successfully end the whole process. Afterwards you will receive this message:

Vielen Dank dafür, dass Sie Ihr Kindle-Konto auf Amazon.de übertragen haben.

Sie können jetzt mit dem Einkauf von digitalen Inhalten im Kindle-Shop von Amazon.de beginnen und die Artikel in Euros (EUR) bezahlen.

And it is done!

Sending the reader Amazon Kindle as a gift

In the previous article about the reader´s parameters I wrote a recommendation for those, which want to give Kindle as a present to someone else, they should recieve it at their own adress first. If you want to save up some money on the postage or to speed up the whole process with your personal message included and without the invoice attached to it and also your registration (Amazon can automatically load it into your Kindle when you send it), here is the instruction manual:

You can can label your Kindle before buying it as Geschenk (gift) and Amazon will know, that the reader is meant to be sent in a umarked box and without the invoice. There is no extra charge for this kind of service, when you won´t demand it to be wrapped up in a gift pape. The pictures are attached below: 

Assisted purchase are always done this way because of the deregistration of the Amazon-Kindle account (you will register at it, after you recieve your reader).

Where to buy books in Germany

I tried out some different portals for buying books and Amazon.de has always proved to be the right one for me. A few times before I also tried to order some books on AbeBooks.de, where the books are often the cheapest in the whole EU (one can get a 5% cashback discount thanks to the registration at iGraal),  I just wouldn´t recomend you to order books which are meant as a gift or purchase them for resale. Because the books are wrapped in a bubble envelope and sometimes are the cornes scraped due to the transportation and also the delivery time is around 10 days. Amazone packes the books thoughtfully, they have them in stock and the delivery time is around 1 - 3 working days (you have to make sure that your seller is really Amazone). Books meant for resale and already packed in a box without logo (so you don´t have to buy another wrapping or box etc.) can be bought on Buecher.de. But you have to make sure, that they have the book in stock, in other case is the delivery time relatively long. Books are the most frequent article, which I purchase in Germany...

If you need to find out, which book is the cheapest in the world (new or old), then I recomend you this website, where you can compare them: JustBooks.de.

The manual for making your own, almost for free, book cover is shown here: http://frederick41.de/buchverp.html. The best way to break the cardboard is to break it in the right direction (if possible, not perpendicular to the lateral offsets board) and cut it by a steel ruler with a snap-off knife.

Websites for tracking deliveries

You can see some links below, which allows you to keep track of your delivery, that you are expecting to come. It is necessary to know the tracking number (often marked as Paketscheinnr., Referenznr., Sendungsnr., Trackingnr., Kontrollnr., Tracking ID, Sendungsverfolgung, etc.)

• DHL Deutsche Post
• Hermes
• DPD
• GLS
• UPS
• TNT
• Česká pošta

Recorded delivery mail (RR) can´t be tracked, Recorded package (BA) yes.

This is how the received delivery from 3. 6. 2011 from Hermes looks like: 

Setting the mailing address in Gemany on eBay, Amazon etc.

When you you are setting your mailing adress in Germany in e-shops like eBay, Amazon etc., it is necessary to follow up on some rules. DHL Deutsche Post wants the deliveries, which are coming to the storehouse, to have in the first line the delivery place Mailboxde.com. The standard formular from a regular e-shop could look for example like this:

Firmenname: Mailboxde.com GmbH

Zeile 2: ID .... (... = Vaše číslo)

Zeile 3: nechte prázdné

Vorname: Vaše jméno

Nachname: Vaše příjmení

Strasse: Äussere Weberstr. 57

Postleitzahl: 02763

Stadt: Zittau

Land: Deutschland

Bundesland/Kanton: Sachsen

But e.g. on eBay.de it is needed to proceed in a little bit different way, so that you can achieve the required adress:

Mein eBay > Mitgliedskonto > Adressen > Bevorzugte Lieferadresse > Ändern (or Neue Adressen hinzufügen) > Land oder Region: Deutschland > Name der Kontaktperson: Mailboxde.com GmbH > Straße: Name Surname (or name company name), ID ... > till the field Straße (Teil 2) write: Äussere Weberstr. 57 > Postleitzahl: 02763, Ort: Zittau > I recommend to click on: Diese Adresse als meine Standardlieferadresse verwenden.

 On Amazon.de like this:

Mein Konto > Einstellungen: Neue Adresse hinzufügen > POZOR: In the 1. line have to be the name  Mailboxde.com, that´s why it´s needed to be solved this way > Vor- und Nachname: Mailboxde.com GmbH > Firmenname: Name Surname (or company name), ID ... > Straße und Hausnummer: Äussere Weberstr. 57 > Stadt: Zittau > Bundesland/Kanton: Sachsen (compulsory) > Postleitzahl: 02763 > Land: Deutschland > Telefonnummer für Rückfragen: Your telephone number with the dialling code (eg. +420).

It is necessary that the structure of your address looks approximately like this:

Mailboxde.com GmbH

Name Surname (or company name), ID ... (... = Your box number)

Dresdner Str. 9

02763 Zittau

Germany

It should be ok, even if you couldn´t state Mailboxde.com GmbH in the first line, just make sure it is written somewhere in the address.

Amazon Warehouse Deals

In the meantime I have only experiences with the purchase of books on Amazon Warehouse Deals, which are returned for example by other buyers. Amazon is offering them again with high percentage discounts and they also write down if there is any problem with the goods. In the same way Amazon offers many different kind of goods, which can be bought for a favourable prices. They are ofte marked as B-Ware etc. Before I thought of them as defective products, but it works like this: 

Amazone´ll receive the once sold goods back, they´ll check if the product is still functioning properly and avaluate the state of the product and at the end the product will be offered on Amazon again for a very low price as Warehouse Deal...

Free postage from Amazon

It´s a good idea to read through the conditions of delivery by Amazonu. There are actually a few options, how your goods could be delivered. 

I mostly buy books and I use the sending type Standardversand:

Standardversand (Bis zu 2 Werktage. Kostenlose Lieferung für Amazon Prime-Mitglieder, Büchersendungen und Bestellungen über 29 EUR)

Büchersendungen und Bestellungen über 29 EUR means, that the books (of any value), or orders over 29 EUR are send for free in Germany. Amazon also mentions in their conditions, that the category free of charge also refers to these goods:

Music, DVD, VHS, Games und Software.

It is possible to have the goods sent to you by express, just beware of fees which are mostly charged. Another way how to send without any charges is with the help of Premium Versnad, which is in the first month free of charge for new users, but after this time they will charge you an annual fee when you won´t cancel the service in time. I´ve never used it, that´s why I can´t judge it. Maybe just in the aspect, that the delivery time is faster by one day.

It´s necessary to mention that those conditions are directly from the Amazon storehouse. Some of the products on Amazon are sold by other users, which can have their own delivery conditions.